Weekend Hot Topic, part 2: 1080p/60fps mania

GameCentral readers discuss the modern obsession with resolution and frame rate, and whether it’s really important to a good game.

This week’s Hot Topic was suggested by reader Ishi, who asked whether you make sure to know the resolution and frame rate of a game before you buy it and how important you consider the issue. Everyone wants the best graphics possible in a game, but how far does your interest in how a game looks go beyond that?

We’ve rarely had a Hot Topic where there was this much agreement, with the vast majority not only claiming they don’t care but that they’re sick of hearing about 1080p and 60fps. Although a few did insist that the issues were important in moderation, especially for specific types of games.

Same old thing
Frame rate, resolution and graphics don’t matter to me much. I may be wrong, but I think the human eye cannot detect the difference between 720p and 1080p on a TV? Yes, I have been amazed by visual achievements in games, to name a few where I have just looked in wonder: BioShock, GTA V, Red Dead Redemption, The Last Of Us and the views in the Assassin’s Creed games.

What is far more important to me are the gameplay mechanics. Are the controls responsive? Do they work? Can I invert the Y-axis? How much choice do I have over my character’s actions? What is the level design like? Do cut scenes take control away from me? Is the enemy artificial intellegence competent? Does the story make sense? How long is it?

It’s the gameplay. It always has been.half_empty80 (PSN ID)

Rabble rousing
Worrying about technical specs is for PC gamers and people that worry about showing off what hardware they own rather than actually playing a game. Screen tearing and slowdown are bad, worrying whether Mario Kart 8 is 60fps or 59fps just means you need to get out more.

I think most of the talk is just Sony egging on the more unstable fanboys so that they can make a big noise about the PlayStation 4 being more powerful. Putting a normal person in front of a game that’s 900p instead of 1080p and they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in a million years.Gorf

Competitive gaming
I couldn’t give two hoots about a game’s technical specifications. If a game’s good, it should draw you into it regardless of whether it’s running at 60 fps or 30 or whatever. Obviously if there’s some massive technical bug or glitch that’s wholly distracting, then yes, it’s an issue, but generally, I don’t care. I certainly don’t base purchases on whether the game is top of the line in technical matters, especially because these claims are so often bull.

Nintendo were recently ‘caught out’ about inflating the resolution of Mario Kart 8. It’s a bit sad they felt the need to have to do that (but not as sad as the people who set about debunking it) but really, who cares either way? It looks great and plays brilliantly, whether it’s 1080p or not.

I think some of this obsession with technical aspects stems from 90s and early 00s PC gaming, when checking a game’s stats was essential to make sure it could run on your machine (and even then, it wasn’t a guarantee it’d work) and there was a competitive aspect to how high you set all the options and still have the game run on your PC. Thankfully even that isn’t much of an issue these days. I don’t think I’ve bothered to look at the system requirements for a PC game in years.Martin Smith

Priority issue
I have never in my entire life researched the frame rate or resolution of a game before making a purchase. Whether it is 1080p/60fps or 720p/30fps makes little difference to me. Of course 1080p/60fps is nice but isn’t gameplay what’s really important?ar1speedboy

Next gen res
As far as I’m concerned the focus on resolution and 60 frames per second is a product of a fanboy mentality and the difficulty in creating noticeably better graphics now. Its easier to claim that a console, PC or a game is better if it can produce higher numbers than the opposition.

This focus on measurable numbers is distracting everyone from making worthwhile improvements. A game that is operating at 60 frames per second is working approximately twice as hard, and that power is much better spent elsewhere on extra detail, level size, artificial intelligence – almost anything. But these benefits are hard to quantify.

I’ll concede that having a stable 30fps is important, and the Oculus Rift needs very high resolution but beyond that I’d like to move away from this fixation on meaningless improvement. What’s next? 120fps and 4K resolution?Matt Woolley (he_who_runs_away)

Simple argument
I can of course see the value of a good frame rate and resolution. If nothing else, it suggests – or even outright demonstrates – that a game is polished and well-refined.

On the other hand, I think there’s absolutely too much focus on these attributes now. Some gamers are missing the wood for the trees, as they completely disregard all of the important qualities that contribute to a game actually being good in favour of a bunch of paper-based bragging rights.

In fact, the more I think about it, I’m not even sure if I’ve witnessed a single in-depth debate between gamers about the level design, atmosphere, environments, structure, presentation, mechanics or depth of any new gen game so far. I can’t say the same about resolution or frame rate. Maybe that’s exactly how publishers want it: it’s certainly easier and less risky for them if we judge success as being the same old thing except smoother and more detailed.

On a completely unrelated subject, I’m having great difficulty trying to choose between watching The Godfather on VHS or the new Transformers movie in 4K…Panda

Generation standard
I don’t think they’re the be all and end all of a game but resolution and frame rate are important. I had hoped that games this gen would be 1080p and 60fps as standard. I don’t mind a bit of a drop in resolution (that Killzone: Shadow Fall story was crazy) but 60fps is important in action games and anyone can tell the difference if they play two games side by side (try The Last Of Us Remastered as it has a 30fps switch you can just turn on and off).

For me 60fps is very important and you can instantly tell when a game hasn’t got it. Compare Call Of Duty to Destiny and it’s like you’re moving through sludge in Bungie’s game. They’re different kinds of shooters sure, but I would have much preferred if Destiny was more fluid and responsive.

Unfortunately I don’t think we’ll ever get to a 60fps as standard situation, as it will always be tempting to add more detail and have a slower frame rate.Vita-Man

Res Wars
Here’s where I stand on graphics and frame rate. Graphical fidelity is completely and utterly meaningless to me. Much as in real life, the beauty is only skin deep. I mean, yes, sure, stuff like a FIFA game can look very good, but it doesn’t matter because I hate sports games. On the other hand, some indie stuff is extremely graphically unimpressive, but very fun despite that. But when I say graphically unimpressive, I mean low amount of detail – this doesn’t stop the games looking gorgeous in their own right.

For instance, Terraria is just basic sprites, but it looks like a moving work of art at times. As long as it looks nice and doesn’t have too many graphical glitches, I couldn’t give much of a damn about resolution and all that. As for frame rate, basically… if it runs at thirty frames or higher, it’s fine. I really can’t see it making a big difference. I only start to care about frame rate if it begins to visibly chug, which can be distracting and can pose warnings that there’s something wrong with the game.

In regards to the third question: yes, I think that this high resoloution/realism and frames per second fetish is getting extremely damaging to the games industry. I had hoped we’d grown out of this by the time the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 came out, but no, game developers and gamers alike are still riding that horse for all its worth.

At the time, I was hoping that because graphics weren’t going to get much better we could stop the res wars and start making some games with actual depth. But no. The triple-A devs keep farting out the FIFAs and racing games with higher and higher graphics to mask the fact they’ve not had an original idea in decades.

See, this is why I love the indie/semi-indie scene on Steam. They make some truly fantastic and inventive things, which, shock horror, don’t have huge graphical requirements, and none of them are any worse off for them. Plague Inc: Evolved, 1001 Spikes, Crypt Of The Necrodancer, they’re all fantastic games, but they’re not going to win awards for their resolutions or frame rates.

And the fact I just said that makes me think there will be an award at the next games trade show for ‘best frame rate’ if this trend gets much worse than this. Count my words, it’ll happen.Darksapphire
Currently playing: Crypt Of The Necrodancer, Druken Robot Pornography, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion